What Are Your Favorite Peel Sessions ?
 

John Peel of the BBC is one of the greatest enthusiast for music and he's done so many sessions over the years with many different ranging bands. Which sessions are your favorite ?

Also does anyone have a total list of bands he's done sessions with? Who was the last band to record with him ?

Some of my favs:
lightning bolt
melt banana
white stripes
mudhoney
j and m chain
the fall

Smiths and White Stripes

Yeah, the Smiths sessions were always something special.

The Fall session 11 is the pinnacle, in my opinion (Athlete Cured/Australians in Europe/Twister/Guest Informant).

Also, I fondly remember Three Wise Men, Bogshed ("Tried and tested Public Speaker", oh yes...), Aphex Twin of course, Sonic Youth, Great Leap Forward, The Stupids, and I Ludicrous.

oh yea, i completly forgot they did a session. That one was incredible where they did all fall covers and pulled off some rip roaring version of "my house", "rowche rumble" and "psycho mafia". Just thinking about it makes me feel dizzy.

You can hear that session here.

You may be surprised to know - stunned, even- that they did two normal sessions, plus three shows counted as sessions at the Peel website. Here's the Sonic Youth page there.

Here's the homepage for the excellent KEEPING IT PEEL part of the BBC's website. My advice - go to the Peel Day bit and listen to the sets by The Fall, Venetian Snares and Misty in Roots.

There's also bits about every session band that Peel had, with tracklists etc.

God, there are so many good Peel Sessions. I like the Only One's, New Order's, Magazine's, and Buzzcocks a lot, and I'm not really into any of those bands.

Syd Barret's Peel Sessions is great, and so is T. Rex's.

Of course I love Joy Division's, Gang of Four's, JAMC's--but they are not ones that stand out to me.

The Fall's is great too, and isn't 4 tunna brix by SY a peel session?

Favorite BBC Sessions? Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Stereolab.

the melt banana sessions kill

Before You Make me Die: "Is she really goin'?...am am I really?...do we really know each other?"

haha that's hilarious!! :D Great peel session! I love the Pixies at the BBC too!!

Joy Division
Echo and the Bunnymen (late 70s w/drum machine)
Loop (3 sessions documented in the "Wolf Flow" album)

I have an Xmal Deutschland Peel session that I like better than any of their albums.
The vinyl they used for those was super heavy and NICE.

yes, i was going to say this as it is smashing,

my favourite fall sessions are 9 and 10,

purely because of the man whose head expanded and R.O.D.

when john peel died i hadn't listened to his show in about 7 or 8 years. i had a tape of one of the live shows SY did for peel, it was from about 93, i taped a live performance by the boredoms from 95 too, but it came out really bad so i taped some drum n bass over it.
the thing i remember enjoying most on peel was listening to all the glasgow bands circa 95/96, groups like the delgados, belle & sebastian, urusei yatsura, yummy fur, secret goldfish, eska... just when they were all starting out.
oh youth.

This thread is wholesome goodness for thread readers everywhere.

Melt Banana is quite nice. If I had to pick.

This is good: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel...tiansnares.ram
It's not exactly a Peel session though...

Pavement anyone?

I'd been trying to hear her version of "Old Age" for a while, thanks for that. Don't know that it holds up to the original, but it was interesting.

I like the With The Lights Out version better....

WARNING! This post contains material of a very sad nature.

Ahem. If you're a fan of both The Fall and Sir John of Peel, you may be interested to know that a couple of very nice people have collected together 45 minutes from over many years. It's Sir John's intros and outros to Fall tracks, recorded from his broadcasts. Nice nostalgia, and some excellent bits of wit. And listen out for his reaction to the session version of 'Athlete Cured'.

Peel/Fall intros and outros

I do take a lot of points away from him for ignoring the Legendary Pink Dots.
They have a FAR more consistent record and a far more favorable good:bad ratio in their back catalogue than The Fall, who he had such a hard-on for.
Aside from that glaring oversight, decades of huge service acknowledged.

Let's give this 'un a mahoosive bump (over 2 years!)

man or astroman's peel sessions were awesome.

I was listening to a live session the other day of something they did around the time of that record I have of theirs which is on speckled vinyl... fine, fine band. Are they still about? They used to put on a very good live show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/sessions/

there were so so so many good sessions

Pixies
Pavement
Sonic Youth
Nirvana
The Wedding Present
Huggy Bear
Bardo Pond
L7
Madder Rose
Bikini Kill
PJ Harvey
Trumans Water
Jesus Lizard
Babes In Toyland
Hole
Mudhoney
Dinosaur Jr
Sebadoh
Royal Trux
Therapy?
Shonen Knife
Th' Faith Healers
Silverfish
Stereolab
Aphex Twin
Boards Of Canada
The Orb
Plaid
Autechre

to name just a few

Flossie and the Unicorns in the late 90s (possibly early '00s). Ridiculous, and great.

I'm hoping in the next few months to digitise loads of my 'Peel archive' (currently on tape) so I'll try and remember to up some of it here.

this would be nice.


there's alot of JP torrents on TPB
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3859...lation_1_of_17

i'm getting 8/17 right now which is 1967-1993 but it's over 4gb and taking days to complete

Nah they haven't been around for awhile except for one live show a couple years ago.

FLOSSIE AND THE UNICORN were awesome ha. What an absurd group.

Sonic Youth
Autechre
Syd Barrett

Those are really the ones I can picture in my head and recall really liking. I looked at the full list on Wikipedia, and it's really amazing how many great bands he had on, but also how many lame new wave acts and worthless alternative groups such as 7 Year Bitch.

If I remember rightly that was called 'rotted as the heater in Maida Vale' and may well be the only thing of theirs I ever enjoyed

Glice i'm getting this now so if you want it and don't have a dime account i can upload it here for you

I have it on tape somewhere, but thanks anyway. If you come across Faust's session from about '99 though I'd be most grateful.

ok i'll keep my eyes peeled

I'm not going to lie to you - I like what you did there. Sharp.

thanks :D

"Hungover as the Queen in Maida Vale", though Peel somehow mis-read that as "Hungover as the oven in Maida Vale". Still got that and loads of others from 1996-2000 on tape somewhere. They later used parts of it on Skinny Fists (or maybe the 12" with Moya? Can't remember off-hand).

All the Delgados sessions were classics, especially the '97 one with the first airing of Pull The Wires From The Wall. And that all-exclusive tracks Belle & Seb session that seemed to take about 3 years to arrange. Not to forget Mogwai covering Don't Cry...

Delgados doing Mr Blue Skys (I think I've lost that tape)... Mogwai doing don't cry was ridiculous (in a great way)... and I can't remember if it was Peel or Lamacq, but Arab Strap did a cover of that Sugababes Christmas single with Lauren Laverne on backing vocals. Radio ga ga indeed.

Joy Division
Autechre
Stereolab
Pixies
Sonic Youth

Nico
Mogwai
Broadcast
The Fall
Loop
Cocteau Twins
Jesus and Mary Chain

more.

I really like Low's Peel Sessions. There was one in 2003 which is my favourite of the three they did.